Garden isle's breathtaking scenery is featured in TV and film, from ‘Fantasy Island’ to ‘South Pacific’

We had gawked at the grassy plain that “Jurassic Park” dinosaurs roamed and stood on the white sands where Gilligan shipwrecked the S.S. Minnow. Now our Kauai Movie Tour group was tromping through the ghostly abandoned Coco Palms Resort, once the exotic setting for Elvis’ 1961 hit film, “Blue Hawaii.”

Devastation surrounded us — the lobby roof was torn off, windows blown out, and light fixtures ripped from ceilings, just like the day Hurricane Iniki ravaged the landmark and closed it 21 years ago. We stopped at the iconic lagoon in the exact spot where lei-bedecked Elvis got into a flower-festooned canoe with his on-screen fiancée and famously crooned the “Hawaiian Wedding Song.”This is when our offbeat outing turned even cooler.

“Coco Palms is about the aloha spirit,” enthused our surprise guest, 83-year-old Kauai musical “living legend” and Pelvis pal Larry Riviera. Draped in kukui nuts, upbeat “Uncle Larry” cheerily strummed his ukulele and sang his original ditty “Kauai The Last Paradise” near towering coconut trees now ringed with yellow caution tape (before crossing the resort’s “No Trespassing” barrier, we had to sign a liability waiver that included the risk of death from falling coconuts). Unfazed, Riviera still conducts “Blue Hawaii”-themed marriages here for Elvis fans.

Peeking at the storm-socked storied Coco Palms — The King also vacationed with Priscilla at the oasis, Esther Williams paddled through the lagoon in “Pagan Love Story,” and Johnny Depp was lashed to one of its coconut trees in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” sequel — ranked up there during a terrific trip to this tropically enchanting “Garden Isle.”

Among our faves, my husband and I also heart-racingly zip-lined over a luxuriant rain forest on a 1,200-foot-long cable ominously dubbed “King Kong” (I briefly dangled after not quite making it to the other side). We laughingly learned the hula on an open-air boat ride up the Wailua River to the fabled Fern Grotto. We hiked the stunningly spectacular “Grand Canyon of the Pacific,” and rugged world-renowned Napali Coast. For local flavor, we hung loose at the funky 50-year-old tiki bar where George Clooney’s character met “cousin” Beau Bridges in “The Descendants.”

“Where did George sit?” I off-the-bat asked our bartender Julia, who has been working at Tahiti Nui “the better part of 40 years.” While a Hawaiian slack key guitarist plucked during happy hour, I perched on the Hollywood hunk-graced bar stool, sipped a mean mai tai and listened to Julia regale us with wild stories about late owner “Aunty Louise” and the day Secret Service-shrouded President Jimmy Carter dropped by.

This was in slow-mo heavenly Hanalei on the majestically mountainous emerald-green North Shore, the best part of our three-leg, six-night trip to all sides of Kauai (not that it takes long — there’s only one two-lane highway, roughly 10 percent of the island is car accessible, and to drive it all takes about three hours). By this time, I didn’t even notice the nonstop “COCKA-DOODLE-DOOS!” Zillions of roosters, hens and cuddly chicks run amok everywhere, adding to Kauai’s mystique and providing another nickname: “The Chicken Isle.”